Individuals and businesses utilize a variety of messaging technologies to: socialize, communicate, and engage in business activities. Some of these messaging technologies include: email platforms, text platforms, instant messaging platforms, browser-based platforms, and a variety of social media platforms. Each specific type of messaging platform has its own set of interfaces and features, some of which may be device-type specific or may work better (with more features) on a given device type. Furthermore, most messaging platforms include their own Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that permit automated and program-based interaction with features of the messaging platforms.
As a result, businesses have little useful metrics as to how consumers are using messaging platforms to engage in activities with the businesses beyond direct interactions between an individual and a business over a specific messaging platform. The problem with this is that the messaging activity by an individual prior to that individual engaging a business is essentially unknowable with present technology and technology approaches.
For example, consider a consumer who receives a discount at a restaurant through normal mail delivered to a home address of the consumer or delivered via email (type of messaging platform) to an email address of the consumer. The consumer may then redeem the discount online when ordering for a group of friends. Subsequently, the consumer picks up the food order from the restaurant. The restaurant has no idea as to: who the group of friends were (identities of members), what relationship each member has to the consumer, nor how the consumer reached out to the members for establishing the group food order in the first place. Moreover, the consumer has no existing messaging platform for collecting contributions from each member of the group to obtain what that member owes for that member's portion of the food order (except for the consumer specifically prompting each member with what that member owes and manually collecting from each member his/her share).
A business only sees a small portion of a consumer's journey (activity from start to finish) that leads to business engagement through messaging technology. The journey can span multiple different messaging platforms, and the journey is rich with metrics that would permit the business to better engage, market, and understand the consumer and the consumer's journeys.